S. Alonso, M. Bollain, C. Cuvillo, M.C. Fernandez, A. Garcia, E. Santos
Univ. Politecnica de Madrid
Spain
The ERASMUS program started in June 1987 and it aims at supporting, promoting and stimulating cooperation among European Universities.
The Universities participating in ERASMUS are financed to exchange teaching staff, exchange students and develop joint curricula. This program awards grants to students who wish to fulfill part of the requirements for obtaining their degree in a University other than those they are currently attending.
European Universities are encouraged to conform groups called ICPs (Inter-University Cooperation Program) in order to facilitate the coordination and organization job. Each institution is member of a group in which all the members are of the same kind (referred to the orientation of the studies).
In the University School of Computer Science of the ``Universidad Politecnica de Madrid'' (U.P.M.) we consider that ERASMUS brings an excellent opportunity for students to know another cultures, work with different groups of people and learn how a ``professional'' job is done in another country. This is why we try to focus our participation on these three points and why we have chosen the final dissertation project as the subject that students must attend.
Today's market is a very competitive one. Whenever students finish their studies, they come into a world that needs to obtain quick benefits and so offers few opportunities to non-experienced persons. Of course, this is one of the most important preoccupation in the University environment, and it's well known that there are a lot of people working on programs to help recent graduates to know what they are going to find in the ``real world.'' Such programs include working in business or institutions during their college years as a part of practical working, and we even may consider the final dissertation project as a way of teaching these students how they should work when they finish.
Nowadays, there is another problem added to the difficulties of starting looking for a job. The existence of large economic markets, such as the European Union or the one composed by the U.S.A., Mexico and Canada, implies that the new graduates must be prepared to work in any of the several countries that are part of such markets. This situation presents new additional problems because these graduates should be familiar with other languages, customs and ways of life.
Hence the European Union (E.U.) started the ERASMUS project, allowing students from different countries to spend some time in another university taking different subjects. There was the conviction that it would allow students from every country to have the opportunity to meet other people and cultures in order to generate a feeling about the European Union as a ``big country'' where its inhabitants are neighbors and not just people from a foreign country.
In the University School of Computer Science of the ``Universidad Politecnica de Madrid'' (U.P.M.) we have been participating in the ERASMUS project for two years. We have tried to bring a global solution to the problem of teaching how students should work and adapt to a environment that is not their natural one by allowing the interchange students from other universities to work in their final dissertation project being directed by professors of the host university.
The University School of Computer Science of the U.P.M. joined the ERASMUS project as an active member in 1993 when the ICP (Inter-University Cooperation Program) we are member of, was established. This ICP is currently constituted by the following institutions:
The ERASMUS program was launched in June 1987. The program aims at supporting, promoting and stimulating cooperation among European Universities towards developing joint curricula, exchanging staff and students, organizing joint courses, etc. Through the ERASMUS program, European Universities are financed in order to constitute Inter-University Cooperation Programs.
The main objectives of the ERASMUS program are:
The financial contribution of the E.U. to universities aims at assisting the latter in creating ICP's to:
The ERASMUS program, apart from financing Universities, awards grants to students who wish to fulfill part of the requirements for obtaining their degree at an University other that those they are currently attending. These student mobility programs can either be part of an ICP or on an independent basis.
The ERASMUS program also finances short visits of faculty and administrative staff members to Universities in other member countries, towards exploring the possibilities for creating ICP's or towards providing short intensive courses.
Cooperation in the research and continuous education fields is not part of the ERASMUS program. In order to cover these fields, the ERASMUS program is related to other European programs as follows:
In this section we describe the overall characteristics of a Computing Engineering Curriculum: years, credits, etc., stressing the final dissertation project development, which is the topic chosen to work on in the center that hosts the students from other universities.
Taking into account that in many countries in Europe the computing graduates have the Engineer grade with two ranks: Technical Engineer and Higher Technical Engineer, each one playing a distinguishable role, our ICP gathers several institutions whose graduates became Technical Engineers.
Specifically, in our school, graduates stay about three years and they obtain a minimum of 255 credits (one credit is equivalent to 10 lecture hours). The distribution of these credits is:
The difference between optional and eligible subjects is that the first ones conform an specialization in the curriculum and the second ones complement it, and they may be chosen from other schools' curricula (for example a second foreign language or literature, etc.).
After passing all these credits they have to develop a final dissertation project that becomes a formative complement and a way to get a deeper specialization by means of working as close as the real working environment is. This project is supervised by a professor. Sometimes these students are incorporated into working teams that share the same project topic but develop different parts of it. These cases are encouraged because they emphasize working with a group of people. In most cases, that is as important as the project. The goal of all this work is to get a job as quickly as possible, where they can develop their professional career.
This approach in the curriculum design is the basis we use for the student interchange process.
In the current economic situation it is more difficult to get a job now than it was several years ago. So, in many cases, someone that wants to improve his professional status has to move to other locations, even to other countries. Many times, this moving does not take place because of the lack of knowledge about the language or working and living conditions and so, people do not improve their working status.
At the University School of Computer Science of the U.P.M. we thought that we could find a solution to this problem by using the ERASMUS project. It is an environment where students learn two basic achievements: to develop a final dissertation project as a ``real'' project and to know different places, languages and customs, allowing them to lose their natural reluctance of going far from home to live and work for a long time.
In our school, we create working teams with two foreign students and a professor who supervises them. These students participate in a global project being developed by more Spanish students and so they can realize how we work here.
In this section we present the results of a survey related to our participation in ERASMUS, analyzing it from two points of view depending on our role as a host or home institution. This survey is also detailed concerning age and sex characteristics.
Academic Course 93/94:
Total number of participating institutions: 7
Total number of grants requested in the ICP: 43
As a host institution
Total number of students: 4
As a home institution
Total number of students: 4
Academic Course 94/95:
Total number of participating institutions: 9
Total number of grants requested in the ICP: 112
As a host institution
Total number of students: 15
As a home institution
Total number of students: 17
All the goals that we established were accomplished satisfactorily, disregarding some minor problems such as the different evaluation criteria used in the different participating institutions. We can assure this because of the questionnaires filled in by all the students participating in this program.
Besides, as we can see in our survey there is an increasing interest in participating in programs like ERASMUS.